


What Rests On Her Shoulders

by OCWotchny



Category: Bayonetta (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Another story entirely, Coming of Age, Death, F/F, F/M, It can be Bayonetta 3, Learning to be an Umbra, She's gonna grow into a strong woman kids, Something Bayonetta 2 should have been but was not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2018-12-23 06:24:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11984025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OCWotchny/pseuds/OCWotchny
Summary: In a world where the Umbran Heiress and the Left Eye are out wreaking havoc, things are awakening that have been at rest for hundreds of years.Namely Clair, a young girl who discovers her hidden potential to become an Umbra Witch. Her existence is a miracle, a sign that there's a chance for the Umbra, but it's not without drawbacks-- For example, every single angel in Paradiso having their sights set on the new bloodline that's emerged in the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [So, hey. I've always liked the idea of the Umbra and the Lumen kind of... Popping up again, caused by all of the shenanigans Bayo and Jeanne pull. More importantly, I really don't care for Bayonetta 2. I feel it was lazy writing and honestly a tad sloppy, so this is me making a new plot entirely for my favorite game in the entire world. Clair is an OC i've had for about 3 years now, and I love her to bits. I hope you all will, too.]

Clair lives a normal life. She goes to school during the day, hangs out with friends during the afternoon. She’s popular. Sweet. Sassy. She leads a thousand boys by their nose with her looks and turns them to dust with her charm and guile. She plans to go to school for modelling and fashion design, and she’s already had a few outfits looked at and accepted by various companies. She’s already done photoshoots for magazines. Her life is perfect. She’s perfect. She doesn’t think it will ever change.

“Man, it’s been really bright this past week,” her friend, Maria, asks. Clair clicks her tongue, gazing out of the window of the café she’s sitting in. She certainly has a point, the sun has been harsh over the last several days. It hasn’t been too much hotter, no worse than a typical New Jersey September. Highs in the low eighties, lows in the low seventies. 

“Probably some weird weather thing,” she murmurs, sipping her drink through her straw and reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face. “Can’t be too bad, though. I haven’t heard about anything in the news.”

Maria snorts. “Yeah, there hasn’t been much on at all other than those disasters in New York. Didn’t an entire building collapse last week like something had rammed into it? The government has been going nuts trying to figure out what caused it…” She trails off in thought, taking a bite out of the cookie bar she’d begged Clair for when they’d gotten there that afternoon. Clair raises her brows, interested.

“They still don’t know? I thought it would have been ruled out as a bombing, or something…” Clair says, squinting at the table as she thinks. Maria’s eyes go a little wider, like she’s telling some kind of secret.

“No! Like, it wasn’t an explosion at  _ all _ . People who saw it happen say it looked like something just… Crashed into it. It looked like something had tried to cut it in half with a huge axe or some shit. After that, the building just… Crumbled. Guess it couldn’t hold itself up.”

“Didn’t everyone turn out alright, though?” She asks, leaning forward to rest her chin on her palm. “I heard that other than a few minor injuries, there weren’t any deaths. Spooky, isn’t it?” The corners of her lips pull into a grin, and she brings up her hands to wiggle her outstretched fingers. “Maybe there’s something extra going on that nobody can see, you think? A government coverup, or some kind of demon wreaking havoc.”

Maria throws a crumb at her. She giggles. “Stop messing around! It’s not like anything is ever going to actually be leaked to the public, you know? Honestly, we should just stop worrying about it. Summit isn’t a very large place-- there’s no way something will happen to us here.” She wraps up what remains of her food in her napkin and goes to throw it in the trash. Clair stands and follows after her, picking up her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. 

“Hey,” Maria says as they exit the coffee shop. “Have you been using a new lotion or moisturizer? Your skin has been looking… Glowing, almost. If it wasn’t so pretty, it’d be a little weird.” She pulls open the door to the passenger seat and climbs in before Clair has a chance to answer. As she walks to the drivers side, she reaches up to touch her cheek, expression contorting into a confused frown. Her skin feels normal… Maybe a little more taut than usual, a little warm, but nothing out of the ordinary. She stares in the window of her car to try and examine herself, unsure of what she’s actually looking for. Behind her, a truck speeds by, and the draft it creates whips bright red hair out of her eyes so the sun hits her skin, and for a second she thinks she sees it. Her eyes seem brighter than their normal blue, and her skin is a bit more pale… But it’s gone when a cloud eclipses over sun, and she convinces herself it’s just a trick of the light.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says as she lowers herself into the driver’s seat, humming with satisfaction as she turns the key in the ignition and feels the familiar purr of the engine under her thighs. “Are you sure I’m just not that pretty? I’m kind of a model, in case you’ve forgotten.” She reaches into her purse and grabs for the rearview mirror, pulling out a tube of lipstick and reapplying it. Maria does the same, taking out a compact and checking her face.

“Uh-huh, I hear you,” she says like she totally does not, which is how she normally answers Clair’s blatant narcissism. “Hey, Aaron’s having a block party tonight. You up for going?”

Clair scoffs. “Aaron? Are you kidding me? I’d rather watch paint dry-- besides, I’ve got to get back to my parents. They’ll flip if I’m out late again,” she says. Maria cocks an eyebrow, looking over at her from where she’d been reapplying some blush.

“Again? What, you’ve been sneaking around?”

“Please, as if. I told you what happened a few weeks ago, right? My car lost control and, like, threw itself off-course. I ran into a tree.”

“Oh my god, were you okay?!”

“I’m here, aren’t I? My parents thought I had been drinking, though. I was nearly grounded for a month until the police who drove me home said that there had been nothing on the breathalyzer.” Clair sighs, and drops her lipstick back into her purse before fixing her mirrors and pulling out of the parking space. That had been a weird night. She’d been driving back home from a visit to a college campus, and had been on a highway winding through the woods when it had felt like something the size of a deer had just slammed into the side of her car. It had been terrifying, and she’d lost control of the wheel. Everything else had been a blur; her calling the tow company to come and take her car; her calling the police when she’d heard another loud bang on the roof of her car; the adrenaline pumping through her veins as she’d stepped out of the vehicle to inspect the damage. Her instincts had told her that there was something dangerous out there, that there was something inhuman threatening her that night, but… Nothing had happened. She’d been met with the gruesome sight of a few dents in the roof of her car, and had dealt with a rough chewing-out when she’d gotten home that night. Her pastor had asked her if she was okay when she’d gone to church the next Sunday. 

“But yeah, some other time,” she mutters as she pushes down on the gas pedal, shaking her head to clear the memories from her mind.

Most of the things that had happened that night had been explained as a deer or a bird leaping out and throwing her off course before somehow getting away before she’d seen them. Some kind of animal had to have done it, obviously. There weren’t any fingerprints or shoe tracks in the area, so it couldn’t have been a person. Clair had gone with it, then. She hadn’t really wanted to consider much else, instead just worrying about how much it would cost to fix her car, how long until she got it back.

What she’d never been able to figure out was the smell that had lingered in the air after she’d gotten out. The smell of a sprig of rosemary, achingly similar to the smell of the incense burned in the altar at her church during Mass. 

* * *

  
Something odd happens at her next photoshoot. 

She’s sitting in front of her mirror and scrolling through her phone, chin tucked over the collar of the cape thrown over her front while her stylist runs a comb through her hair. It had been a normal job for the most part, starting the same day as any others, until…

“Oh, shit,” she says, pulling back and glaring at the back of Clair’s head. Clair looks up from the screen in front of her and furrows her brow in concern.

“Is something wrong?” She asks, trying not to sound too worried. Her stylist, Raven, holds up her scissors and Clair’s eyes fly open. She blinks a few times, perplexed. Raven doesn’t look much different.

“I don’t know what happened,” she says, frowning down at the mangled, now-useless metal shears in her hand. “You got it conditioned over with Marge, right? Had she had any issues?”

Clair shakes her head, laughing because there’s nothing else to really do. “Same as always. It didn’t break the comb, did it? Maybe they’re just old, or something.”

Raven shakes her head. “Old scissors just don’t cut very well. They don’t break-- I’ve never had a pair break on me, and I mean,” she gestures at her face, raising an eyebrow. Clair snorts. “I’m black. ‘Black girl’s hair is stronger than anything in the world. But I don’t go breaking scissors, girl.”

She can’t help but giggle, and Raven rolls her eyes. “Not like it matters, anyways. You look flawless as always: I was just planning on cutting anything that looked out of place underneath.”

The rest of her photoshoot goes as planned. When she gets home, though, she spends a solid thirty minutes in front of her vanity pulling through thick locks of hair, cut short and spiked up at the neck. There’s nothing out of the ordinary.  _ Weird _ , she thinks.

The next odd thing that happens occurs next week. There’s two things that happen, actually.

The first happens fairly early during the day. She has gym her third period, which has always been… Well, it’s been. Not that Clair is out of shape (because she most certainly is  _ not _ , thank you very much), she just doesn’t like to put in too much effort in things she’s not invested in. Spoiler: running around a track or playing basketball are very much things she is not invested in.

She doesn’t like playing with other people, either. Clair is a friendly person, but teamwork… Isn’t her forte. She likes to get things done herself, make sure it’s done right. She’s a little headstrong too, if she’s being honest with herself. She’s also, much to her chagrin, extremely proud.

It makes gym even more frustrating, because one thing that seems to transcend space and time and apply to all highschool boys in any highschool gym class ever is that they are  _ incredibly _ pigheaded, and have to make sure they can show everyone in the class just how pigheaded they are. They have to be the strongest, the fastest, the most agile, the winners, all the time always in a class where that kind of thing does not matter. The worst part? Clair literally cannot stop herself at all from rising up to the challenge and trying to beat them. 

This turns into a bit of a spectacle when they’re out running laps. 

There’s several track team members in her class, and they’ve all passed her several times now. They’re  _ sprinting _ , for God’s sake. It’s hardly even  _ nine o’clock _ . Clair does not understand how they can be outright sprinting before she’s even completely dressed and ready on a Saturday. She’s trying to keep calm and not get irritated, but it’s a little difficult. They don’t make it easy on her, either-- They know who she is, they know what she’s about. They know that she’ll get pissed if they keep bumping into her, or keep sending some smug smile back at her when they pass her up.

Her nerve snaps when Paul, a lanky boy with a thin head of hair, has the nerve to turn around mid-run and throw a peace sign up at her. 

Clair’s heartbeat roars in her ears, and she lets out a growl. 

Her legs feel like they’re on fire, and she feels like there’s raw adrenaline coursing through her veins. She’s seeing red. The next pound of her foot against the track feels like it cracks the asphalt, and before she knows it she’s flying forward. Her arms are pumping at her sides, and her legs are a blur as she tears down the path and zooms past three members. The fourth one she catches at the curve, and the sheer force of her turning by him causes him to stumble and fall.

On the other side of the track are hurdles, which weren’t technically in the way, but her speed had changed her trajectory and position. She’s in the lane that has a large row set aside, and there’s no chance to move over. She’s going too fast, the first hurdle is coming up quick-

She jumps. 

She clears all seven off them in a single bound.

When she hits the ground, she immediately tumbles to the ground and rolls on her side. Her recovery is quick, though, and she slides to her feet with her momentum before coming to a stop next to the gate.

Everyone is quiet. The few people who were still moving are slowly coming to a stop to look over at her, jaws dropped at the sight of her taking off like a bullet and practically flying off the ground. 

“Whoo!” She says, bouncing on her feet and turning to her coach as though nothing is wrong. “That was pretty intense- Hey, coach. I’m going to go in and grab a shower so I don’t smell all day; class is almost over, anyways. See ya!” She says, turning on her heel and throwing a wave over her shoulder. He can only stand there and nod, mouth agape with shock and amazement.

The second odd thing happens later that day.

It’s not really odd, though. More of a disaster.

Clair’s school is… Interesting. Not very loud, but certainly interesting. There was always some sort of shenanigan going on-- last week it had been all of the posters and hanging banners being put up along the walls of the auditorium like some sort of mural. The week before that saw most people wearing socks on their hands and complaining about being unable to write. Most things were harmless jokes like this, weird schemes instigated by pranksters who liked to cause trouble in good fun. It drove the teachers nuts sometimes, but nothing ever lasted long, and there wasn’t ever any damage.

Usually, that is. 

This week’s event was a giant pyramid of all of the chairs in the cafeteria, towering over the room. The top nearly met the ceiling, which was a feat considering it went all the way up to the third floor. 

Clair doesn’t question it. She stays clear of most of these kinds of things, finding them amusing but not wanting to take part in it. It’s better to watch, anyways. Still, this one is a little more… Obtrusive, considering the sculpture had used all of the seating in the room. She makes do like the rest of the student body in her lunch period and takes her food to her table, joining her group of friends like it’s any other day and taking a seat on the surface of the table.

“Yo, Clair. You heard about who messed with the room?” Anthony, another senior, asks from the opposite side of the table. He nods his head in the direction of the stack of chairs, which has been getting odd looks from some of the underclassmen. A few teachers stand guard around it, some looking irritated and some looking amused. 

Clair quirks a brow. “Not really, no,” she says, forking a bite of salad from the tupperware container from home and shoveling it into her mouth. She chews for a second before speaking again, mouth still full. “‘Prolly Clark and his friends, though. They did the banners, didn’t they?”

Maria slides onto the table next to her, inserting herself into the conversation naturally. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she says, carding her fingers through short black curls. “They’re always getting up to stupid, aren’t they?” 

Anthony snorts. “Hey. I’m friends with them, okay? Try not to bad mouth them in front of me,” he says. Maria and Clair just laugh at him.

That’s how the lunch period goes, for the most part. Other than the obvious disturbance, it’s a normal day filled with normal conversation. It’s in the last five minutes that disaster strikes. Clair gets up to throw her garbage away, like normal. She walks to the end of the cafeteria, past the stack, and deposits her leftovers in the can, like normal. On the way back, she stops dead in her tracks. 

It’s the same smell as before, permeating the air. No one else seems to be able to pick it up, but it hits her like a smack in the face. The smell of rosemary.

_ “Young lady, look out-!” _

Clair snaps out of her stupor just in time to look up and see the top layer of chairs fall towards her, followed shortly after by the rest underneath. It’s an avalanche. Around her, students scatter for safety while she stands with her feet planted in the ground.

It kind of hurts, she thinks. Definitely not pleasant. Is this what dying is like? She didn’t think it would ache like this, but hey. Whatever. She tries to move… And discovers that it’s hard. She is not a spirit. She’s a physical being, still, and as far as she can tell, she’s alive.

It doesn’t really cross her mind that she probably should not be. 

Clair manages to throw a few chairs off of her as she practically swims her way out of the pile of metal and plastic, letting out a groan of relief when she finally surfaces. The chair she’d pried out of the way is still in her hands, and she tosses it to the side with an aggravated huff.

“Next time someone wants to make something this dangerous, we are going to have a  _ problem _ around here,” she growls, brushing herself off as though she hadn’t just been crushed by hundreds of pounds of seating. It clicks in her head that it’s definitely not normal when she looks around, however. Everyone’s eyes are on her, some with awe, some with worry, some with what can only be described as horror. 

“.... What?” She asks, looking around. A teacher is the first one to react and actually say something, breaking the layer of silence that had settled over the cafeteria crowd. 

“Let’s,” he says, pausing after choking up. He swallows, and tries to reel himself in. “Let’s get you looked at-- To the nurse. Yes, the nurse.” He grabs Clair’s arm and tugs her along, dragging the dumbfounded girl out of the cafeteria and down the hallway.

…

“And you’re sure there’s no pain?” Asks Ms. Mary, the nurse, as she pries open Clair’s eye. She shines a light into her pupil and moves it side-to-side. Clair follows it diligently.

“No ma’am,” she says. “I don’t even really remember what happened, it was so fast. Just, one second I was there, and the next I was… Climbing out, I guess is the best description.” She shudders. Mary holds her still. 

After a quick check-up involving peeling apart her hair and feeling up her scalp to make sure there’s no bleeding, the nurse turns to write down a few things on a clipboard, letting out a thoughtful noise. “This is… Very bizarre, Ms. Clair. I don’t know how to put this, other than the fact that you are exceptionally lucky.” She looks up from where she’s scribbling, half-moon spectacles glinting in the dim fluorescent lighting. “And you say that you’re not at all hurting? Whatsoever?” 

Clair shakes her head. “No, not at all.”

Mary crinkles her nose. “Well, alright. At the very least, consider yourself lucky.”

In the end, she decides to send her home to rest. Clair doesn’t really feel tired, but… It’s a lot to take in. She figures it must be shock.

* * *

 

When she gets home, she’s immediately sat down by her mom.

“You were nearly killed!” Her mother yells. It’s the fourth time she’s said it in the past hour, now, but Clair can’t really blame her. “Honestly, Clair! You need to be more careful, your father is worried  _ sick _ at work, he can’t come home because he’s in a meeting but he’s  _ still _ texting me-- I was nearly tearing my hair out when they called, I know they said you appear to be fine but you were nearly  _ crushed! _ You should be in a hospital,  _ why are you not in a hospital?! _ You should be-- I need to--” Clair winces at the distraught groan that tears out of her mother’s lips. She didn’t mean for it to happen. Hell, it hadn’t even been her  _ fault _ . The only thing she did was… Come out unharmed. Maybe that’s what this was about? Maybe her mother would be less upset if she had gotten hurt. It would be easier to process, no doubt.

The thought is kicked out of her head immediately when she looks up and makes eye contact with her mother, and she sees the pure relief in the woman’s eyes when she realizes that yes, her baby is here, her daughter is safe.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she says finally, swooping down for a sweet embrace and smoothing her hand over the back of Clair’s head. 

“Yeah, mom. I’m fine,” she says, unable to keep a smile from tugging at her lips. She feels like a little kid, almost. It’s nice.

Her father doesn’t say much about it when he arrives home, so Clair assumes he’s calmed down. All he does is fix his eyes on hers, assess the fact that she’s safe, and pull her into a hug. Clair pats him on the head when he pulls back with a snarky grin.

The whole ‘I’m so glad you’re not dead’ treatment goes uphill from there. They take her to her favorite restaurant, which is really less of a restaurant and more of a bar. She’s friends with a few of the bartenders who work there; some are graduated friends, some are people she’s known from coming there so often. Her parents let her sit alone while she talks to the girl working the bar that night, a girl named Ally who graduated when Clair was just a sophomore.

It’s not a very long conversation, sadly. Ally has to work, and Clair is busy digging into a burger (which she feels she has earned and will definitely work off later, her photography can shove off). Not that Clair minds, as she’s currently very invested in the urgent news of something that had happened earlier that day.

_ “-government reports say that three people are dead after this horrific event. There was no warning when New Yorkers were abruptly interrupted by a huge crash in central park, caused by a fighter plane that had dove into the ground. There is no pilot to be found, and military officials say that this plane had not been licensed for flight. Furthermore, several large gashes in the earth can be found around the crash site, as though someone had cleaved into it with a large weapon. Experts on the scene say…” _

She eyes the television with a hint of curiosity, and doesn’t even notice when someone else slides into the bar stool next to her. It makes her jump when the woman speaks. 

“Quite the commotion, isn’t it?” She says, her voice rasp. Clair is a little afraid to look at her. She’s even more afraid when she does.

The woman is… Very pretty, she decides. Her makeup is very striking, with long lashes and striking eyeshadow. Her cheekbones are high and look like they can cut through glass, and her lips are full and plump, painted with a dark plum lipstick. The woman waves her hand, and Ally is over in seconds with what Clair can only assume is straight vodka on the rocks.

“I was there earlier,” she continues, taking a sip without looking at Clair. “I saw it all for myself. Nasty business, really- a shame it ended up being so sloppy. I can’t believe people were hurt from it.” 

“Um,” Clair says.

“Not that it matters, in the end. It’s not like the people there had any control over it happening; they couldn’t see the danger right in front of their eyes. The threat that looms just beyond their sight.” She turns her head to actually look at Clair now, locking their eyes.

“Um,” Clair says again. She feels herself sweating.

“... Good to actually meet you,” The strangers says after what feels like an eternity. She stands, throws her drink back, and leaves. Clair watches after her with furrowed brows, feeling more confused than she’s ever felt in her life. Her phone vibrates on the bar in front of her; it’s her dad, asking who that was. Another text asks if she’s okay.

Clair faces forward. She isn’t too sure.

…

She goes to bed that night feeling very lost, and it takes a little bit to finally fall asleep. 

It’s not like it matters. She doesn’t stay asleep very long.

There’s a bright light from outside her window, harsh enough that she jerks awake almost immediately. It’s absolutely blinding, and the only things she can make out are the sharp black outlines of her hands being held up in front of her face. The light screams, it’s inescapable, and no matter how tightly she squeezes her eyes shut or how far she turns away from it it  _ burns _ , she’s going  _ blind _ she-

As suddenly as it started, it stops. Clair blinks a few times to adjust to the darkness, then stands and crosses to her window. She looks outside. Looks up, looks down, looks either direction. She even opens it and sticks her head out.

Nothing.

Wearily, she returns to her bed and lies down, closing her eyes once again.

Pure dread floods her body when the next thing assaults her senses; the overwhelming smell of rosemary, flooding the air.

Something in the back of her mind screams at her to  _ move _ , and move she does. A sharp jerk to the side rolls her off of her bed just as something slices through her bedroom wall, crashing down where her mattress once was. There’s a loud crash, and she knows that it’s gone all the way down.

All that’s on her mind is the fact that her parents are in the room below her.

“ _ Mom! Da- _ **_oof!_ ** _ ” _ Her screams are cut off when an overwhelmingly massive force crashes into her torso, sending her backwards through her wall and into the empty TV room upstairs. It  _ hurts _ , it’s nothing compared to the feeling of the chairs collapsing on her earlier. The wind is knocked out of her, and for a minute she has to lie on the ground and clutch her stomach as she struggles to even breathe.

A loud bang tells her she doesn’t have time to relax, however. Scrambling to her feet, her eyes dart around the room as she searches for a way out.

They focus on the windows, backlit by the full moon sitting high in the night sky outside.

Clair jumps.

It’s just in time, too. She crashes through the window just as whatever had been chasing after her destroys the rest of the upstairs, and she falls to the ground below with her arms crossed over her face to protect from the shards of glass raining down with her.

Time slows to a stop as she falls, and her mind races to figure out what’s going on.

_ “People who saw it happen say it looked like something just… Crashed into it. It looked like something had tried to cut it in half with a huge axe or some shit,”  _ Maria says.

“ _ Furthermore, several large gashes in the earth can be found around the crash site, as though someone had cleaved into it with a large weapon…”  _ The newscaster from earlier says again.

_ “They couldn’t see the danger right in front of their eyes. The threat that looms just beyond their sight.” _ says the woman from earlier.

“ _ Consider yourself lucky,” _ she hears the school nurse say.

Clair hits the ground with a solid thud, and she rolls away a few feet before managing to push herself up and look back at the wreckage of her home. If she squints, she can actually  _ see _ the thing that had attacked her: it’s huge, almost two full stories tall. There’s a faint hint of red and gold around it, and she can just barely make out spikes on the top of what she thinks is it’s head.

Most importantly, it’s coming towards her. 

And it has what looks like a very, very large sword.

Clair scoots back, falling onto her hands and watching helplessly as the monster advances. Each step crosses the gap, and Clair’s eyes widen as she watches it’s arm raise, the faint halo of it’s weapon catching the light of the moon, the stench of incense filling her nose and her body with fear, she’s going to die, this is it, this is the end, this thing is going to kill her and she has no idea what it even  _ is-- _

There’s a loud clang. A sound of metal against metal. Clair opens her eyes.

It’s the woman from before. Her long, white hair that had been in a neat bun is down, swishing around the backs of her knees, and she’s wearing a different outfit now. It’s a red jumpsuit, with long thigh-high boots that end in large heels. On the back of each one is a large purple handgun, with a little cat hanging off the handle.

“My, god,” she says, as if this is just a routine for her. “You manage to pick up something like this little fuck?” She snorts. Clair can only stare in shock, eyes trailing up to her outstretched arm. She’s holding a matching pistol to the ones on her shoes, and she’s holding back the… thing as though it’s as light as a feather. Her arm isn’t even trembling. 

“Well, I suppose it makes sense. You’re the first one of us to pop up in about five hundred years, now; I bet they’re all chomping at the bits to try and get to you. Don’t you feel special?”

The woman snorts, and lifts her arm to throw back the monster. In a movement so quick Clair can’t even catch it, she spins and throws out her leg in a violent kick, and their attacker is sent flying back towards the remains of her house. 

“That’s fucking lovely, honestly. It means we have to get you up and running as quick as we can… For now, though, let’s just try and get you home safe.”

She reaches into her hair and, from seemingly nothing, pulls out a fourth gun. Clair only stares at her back as she struts forward, head held high as her hair billows and whips about with an unseen magical energy. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clair meets the women who are going to shape the rest of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've had this chapter for forever but i felt like people didnt care but its twenty gay teen so fuck yall im posting my girl

Clair is sitting in a living room.

It’s a very elaborate living room. It looks out into a yard with what Clair thinks is a solid pane of glass stretching across the entire wall, giving view to a lengthy driveway, a patch of woods, and the road that leads up to the house she’s in. On the adjacent wall is a massive TV, at least 70 inches. From the distance, it’s hard to tell, but Clair thinks it might curve at the ends. It’s the kind of TV she’s only seen in Best Buy.

On the other end of the room is a double doorway, which Clair has not been through yet. She’s been sitting on the couch for the last five minutes, curled in a little ball while she examines the room. On a large arm chair to her left diagonal is the woman who saved her, who she has come to learn is named Jeanne. Jeanne has her hair up in a ponytail, and she’s nursing a dark, amber colored drink that Clair assumes is whiskey, maybe scotch.

Probably scotch, actually. Rich people don’t drink whiskey.

Jeanne catches her eye and raises a brow, before following the movement with her glass. “How rude of me, I forgot to even offer; want a drink?”

Clair blinks, lifting her head up from her knees. “I’m… I’m underage, ma’am.”

“Please,” Jeanne snorts. “A five year old could use a pick-me-up after being knocked around like you were. Let’s get you a drink,” she says, apparently deciding for her.

Clair gets the feeling Jeanne drinks a lot.

Before she can protest, the other woman is standing and crossing the room to get behind her, where a long bar takes up the entire back of the room. Clair hears some clattering, the sound of ice cubes clinking together, and a liquid being poured. In a matter of seconds, a vodka on the rocks is being held in front of her face, and she carefully accepts it from Jeanne’s hand.

Hah. ‘Underage’, her ass. She’s a senior, a popular senior. She knows her way around alcohol, having been going to parties since her sixteenth birthday when she first snuck out to hop in her friends’ car and drive to a frat party an hour away.

Her legs uncurl out from under her, and she tries to relax a little. Eyeing the glass for a second, she tilts it back and makes a face when it burns her throat.

“Smooth,” she says hoarsely, but without coughing. Clair doesn’t fucking cough.

Jeanne seems a little impressed, and she gracefully floats down onto the armchair again, one leg coming to prop itself over the other. “Glad you take to it so well,” she says. “In this house, we drink our alcohol straight and our liquor straighter. Cocktails are accepted, but if I see you ever pouring cola into a glass of rum, you can sleep outside with the rest of the dogs who do the same thing.”

Clair nearly chokes on her giggle. She can see the tiniest of smiles on the corner of Jeanne’s lips; this is the most emotion either of them have shown since she’s arrived, and the confident attitude Jeanne has is… Reassuring, in its own way.

_“I happen to like a good rum and coke, thank you!”_

A voice sounds from beyond the set of double doors, and Jeanne turns her head to look at it.

“Ah, she’s here,” she says. Clair is a little worried.

Both doors swing open, and in walks a tall, busty woman with short hair styled in a pixie-cut, a pink crop top simply saying “HOT STUFF”, and a pair of short-shorts that look washed and faded. She walks over to the loveseat finishing the couch-chair triangle in the room and collapses onto it, lazily propping herself up on a pillow.

“One can’t account for poor taste, dear,” Jeanne says. The newcomer flips her off.

“So, is this the girl we’ve been hearing about?” The stranger says, completely changing the subject. Jeanne nods. “‘Certainly doesn’t look like much, does she? Can’t believe she got the attention of an _Ardor_ ,” she says. Clair blinks, dumbfounded.

“A what?” she asks. They ignore her.

“You have to give her some credit, Cereza. She’s awfully potent for a witch not born of another witch.”

“Mm… That’s a fair point. ‘Kind of a special package, isn’t she?”

“She’s also the first one to appear in five hundred years.”

“... Also a fair point.”

“Cereza.”

“Alright, alright! I get it.”

Clair clears her throat, and both women look at her. The woman named ‘Cereza’ rolls her eyes. “Right, you. Where are my manners?” She asks sardonically, straightening up on the couch. “Call me Bayonetta, little one. It’s nice to meet you.”

Crinkling her nose at the term ‘little one’, Clair cocks an eyebrow. “I, uh, thought Jeanne called you ‘Cereza’? And I’m eighteen. I’m not a child.”

Bayonetta hums. “I’m six-hundred and six. You’re a child to me.” Clair gawks at her, and Jeanne clicks her tongue in disapproval.

“Cereza, please. The girl just lost her parents- _you_ should know how rough that is,” she says. “She’s probably exhausted. She doesn’t need you sassing her.”

It grows quiet after that, and Clair stares into the ice resting at the bottom of her glass. Bayonetta-Cereza (which one she should call her, Clair isn’t sure) clears her throat.

“My- I’m- _ahem_. I’m sorry, dear. I had no idea... “ She grimaces, and straightens up in the chair. Jeanne sips at her drink. “I lost my own when I was only a bit older than you. The pain is terrible, isn’t it?”

Clair shrugs. She knows the answer is yes, of course- she was close with her parents, she loved them- but admitting that it hurts that they’re gone is admitting that they’re gone to begin with, and doing that is such a scary idea that she can feel the alcohol in her stomach crawl back up her throat just by thinking about it.

She looks up after what feels like hours of silence, eyeing both women in front of her. “Can you- can you explain what happened? What’s happening to me? What’s _going_ to happen to me?”

Bayonetta looks over at Jeanne, and Jeanne snorts.

“Hey,” she says. “You’re the heiress. You get to deal with the inductees. I’m just here for the ride.”

Jeanne ignores her, instead turning back to Clair. “You- Or we, I should say- are witches. Television and media will tell you that witches are those who willingly choose to sell their soul or practice magic, but the truth is that a witch is only a witch if she is born as one.” She screws her mouth to the side, knitting her brows together. “As Cereza said earlier, her and I are both over six hundred years old. We are the last of our clan, the Umbra witches. You are the first woman to be born with magical potential in the past half-millennium.”

“Us witches were killed during hunts that launched across the globe, as I’m sure you’ve heard vague tell of in any history class you may have taken. While humans certainly did persecute us, the real hunts were conducted by angels- yes, the angels that you’re thinking of. We were hunted down by the residents of Heaven themselves.”

Clair tries to wrap her mind around it, and Jeanne gives her a moment to process. It takes her a minute, but finally she asks a question that sounds much more relevant in her head.

“But I go to church- I’m not an evil person. Why would an angel attack me? How can I be a witch?”

Jeanne’s expression is less than pleased. Bayonetta just laughs. She shoots her a glare, and rubs her temples as she tries her best to respond.

“We… Aren’t evil. The Umbra are not an evil clan, in spite of what I just told you.” She lets out a small sigh, and focuses back on Clair. “In the beginning, when the world was forming and humans came to be, the creator blessed two groups of men and women with Her eyes so that they might oversee history themselves. The Lumen sages were men who governed over Paradiso with the Right Eye of light, and us Umbra were given the Left Eye of darkness to oversee Inferno and the demons that dwell within.”

Clair knits her brows together as all of this is laid out, screwing her mouth to the side in disbelief. “Angels?” She asks sarcastically, glowering at the floor. “ _Demons?_ You’ve got to be joking. There can’t… It’s not possible. If they existed, we would have seen them by now.”

“You have,” says Bayonetta. “You just did yourself, and so have plenty of other people. Usually, it’s not so violent-- The feathery little fucks are typically much kinder to human beings. You see acts of Divine Will all of the time on the news,” she explains, waving her hand nonchalantly in the air. Clair doesn’t know what to make of that, and doesn’t like the sinister implications of the last part.

“Our clans- _both_ of our clans- existed to oversee balance,” Jeanne continues, choosing to ignore the both of them.  “The Lumen defeated demons who would try to cause havoc, and prayed to angels so that humanity would receive blessings. We made pacts with demons and slayed angels to keep them satiated, so that humanity would not become prey to the forces of Inferno. It was a delicate balance, but it was one that was kept. Even now, Cereza and I bare the full weight of this task, dedicating our lives to keeping demons at bay with daily sacrifice-”

She’s cut off by a loud snort from Bayonetta, who sits up in her seat and inspects her nails as though she’d rather be anywhere else. “Speak for yourself,” she says. “I do it because it’s fun, and I like being strong. There’s not much else to it.”

“Cereza, please-” Jeanne starts, but she doesn’t get the chance to say much else.

“No,” she protests, crossing her arms over her chest. “I won’t stop. You shouldn’t make her feel like she has some kind of burden to carry. There’s no reason to put that on her, Jeanne; she’s just a child, and you said it yourself that she’s just been through something traumatic.”

Clair doesn’t know who to listen to at the moment. Bayonetta reaches over to put a hand on her thigh, and her breath hitches as she tries to accept what she’s hearing. Bayonetta’s eyes are soft, however, and she feels a little more secure when she looks into them.

“I’m not going to tell you that you have to do something like take responsibility for the world,” she says softly, the expression on her face morphing into something more solemn and serious. “But I’m also not going to lie to you and say that you can turn your back on this fate. You’re going to be attacked by angels like that again and again, and you’re going to have to defend yourself.”

“We want to take care of you,” Jeanne says, speaking up once again. “Cereza is right- the responsibility I spoke of is not mine to give out to you, but that does not change that this is going to be your life now. You need our help, and we want to give it.”

The room falls silent. Clair mulls over her options, her eyes glued to the ground as she tries to understand what she’s being told.

“What will happen if I stay with you?” She asks finally, her voice stronger than before.

Jeanne straightens up and leans forward. “We will begin training you in the ways that we were trained, teaching you combat, science, mathematics, philosophy- you will become a fully formed Umbra, tutored by us until you are a woman fit to call herself one of our own. We are a proud clan, and many of the combat techniques, medicinal practices, and technological endeavors were originated by our own research as a clan. You will learn all of it.”

Clair nods. “... And if I go?” she asks, a little quieter.

Bayonetta’s answer is cold and harsh, and sends a wave of fear through Clair’s frame that terrifies her to her car.

“If you don’t learn from us, you’ll be hunted and killed. Angels don’t give a fuck about whether you consider yourself a witch or not, and they will make your death as painful as they possibly can if they get the chance.”

In her head, there’s only one real option. She wants to grow up, she wants to get a job; to have a future; to live. She can’t do that if she’s murdered, whether it be by an angel or some man in the street.

“I’ll stay,” she says, her voice hardly even a whisper. “I’ll stay here, and I’ll learn from you. I don’t want to die.”

Bayonetta and Jeanne look at each other, and then at her. Jeanne stands and crosses to take a seat on the armrest, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“You won’t,” Jeanne says. “We won’t let that happen.”

***          *          ***

When she awakens the next morning, her head is a little more clear… Until she remembers the happenings of the night before, and it’s all she can do to fall back onto her side and weep for what feels like hours and hours and hours. She cries because her parents are gone. She cries because she’s in a new place and knows nothing about it. She cries because she remembers how much she was told by Bayonetta and Jeanne, and she cries because she still doesn’t know if any of it is even true. Mostly, she cries because she’s scared.

When she manages to regain some of her composure, she sits up and wipes her eyes before sliding off the bed and tentatively makes her way out of the room she had been given. Once she opens the door, the smell of food instantly floods her senses- sausage, she thinks. Maybe eggs. A sudden growl from her stomach reminds her that she hasn’t eaten since the day before, and erases any anxieties that may have kept her from leaving her room.

After turning into several hallways, she finally steps into a large room laid with black tile and granite countertops, with dark ebony cabinets and an onyx refrigerator. In the room is Bayonetta and Jeanne, both dressed in a way that tells Clair they haven’t been up very long. Bayonetta looks up from her newspaper and coffee to offer a wave before going back to reading, and Jeanne turns from where she’s standing in front of the stove to greet her with a gentle smile.

 _Weird_ , Clair thinks. _She’s still wearing lipstick._

“Good morning, Clair,” she says. “I hope you slept well. You’re just in time for breakfast.”

Confused, Clair glances around the room for a clock, curious to see just how late these women let ‘breakfast’ last until. She finds one on a far wall, and is surprised to see that it’s only nine-thirty a.m.

“I, uh. I slept well, thank you,” she murmurs, slinking over to the table and sitting across from Bayonetta. “I thought it was later than it is. I don’t… None of it feels real, still.”

Jeanne lets out a humming noise of affirmation. “It probably won’t for some time, dear, but it will one day- Cereza, do you like your eggs over-easy, or well done?” She asks, suddenly changing the subject. The face Bayonetta makes tells Clair that this is a question she answers often.

“Well done, Jeanne. You know I don’t like them runny.” Her voice sounds irritated, but there’s a small smirk at the corner of her lips that tells Clair she doesn’t mind answering at all. Bayonetta looks at her, and when they lock eyes she can see a glimmer of amusement behind the lenses of her glasses.

Jeanne saunters over to the table with the full pan of food and a plate, setting it down in front of Bayonetta before carefully piling the contents of the pan onto its surface. “I know,” she says, mouth stretched into a full smile. “I just like to ask you.” She leans down and presses a kiss to the other woman’s cheek, and Clair has to blink once or twice to be sure of what she just saw. Jeanne catches her expression, and bats her lashes. “Oh, did I not mention that we’re together?” she asks. Clair shakes her head.

“I hope it isn’t a problem,” Bayonetta says, glancing at her from over the edge of her paper. Her voice makes her sound like she’s already bored of the subject, like it’s not even a topic for discussion.

“It- it isn’t,” Clair stammers, sitting upright. “I just… Wasn’t expecting it, I guess. Though it makes sense, when I think about it. You’re both…” She trails off, chewing her bottom lip so she doesn’t say anything offensive. “I don’t know if- if you’re _old_ for people like you, but. Well. I don’t think anyone else lives up to six hundred, you know…?”

Jeanne and Bayonetta both stare at her with blank expressions, before turning their heads to look at each other and bursting into laughter. Jeanne straightens up and walks back to the stove with her head still tilted back, and Bayonetta has to fold her paper to keep it from getting into her food while she cackles.

“I never thought about it like that!” she says, covering her mouth with her hand. “Though I suppose you have a point. I could have easily lived through a dozen marriages by now- or rather, Jeanne could have. I was asleep for most of it.”

Jeanne snorts once again over while she busies herself with more food, tossing in more sausage links only to push them around with the flipper. “We were an item before that ever became a problem, Clair,” she says, her expression the sleepy kind of pleased that one only gets when they reminisce on something that happened long ago. “Even when it was just me, there wasn’t anyone else. There couldn’t have been.”

Clair still doesn’t quite understand just how Bayonetta had been gone for half of a millenium, but she doesn’t know how to ask about it. Instead, she sits quietly in her chair and mulls things over, before finally asking: “Did it ever get lonely?”

If the question bothers her, she doesn’t show it. “Hmm,” she starts, cocking a hip and waving her face with the flipper while the sausage sizzles in the pan. “I suppose it did, for some time- I’m not going to lie to you, Clair. It isn’t very pleasant watching people you grow to care about grow old and die while you live on… But you learn to live with it.” She turns her head to stare out of the window, and when the sunlight hits her face, her skin looks like sculpted marble. Clair catches Bayonetta admiring her from the corner of her eye while she eats, not a drop of grease falling from her fork each time she brings it to her mouth. “You learn to not get upset about people dying, and instead to appreciate the life that they lived. It’s almost a gift, really; the fact that they can die is what gives their lives meaning at all.”

Clair nods after she considers this, satisfied with the response. Jeanne turns and leans back against the counter, crossing her arms with a sly grin. “Now,” she says, “how do you want your eggs, Clair?”

The question catches her a little off guard, and she has to think about it. “... Scrambled,” she says after a moment, unable to help a small smile.

Jeanne turns towards the stove once more, hair swishing behind her while she cracks an egg into the pan with one hand.

“Scrambled it is, then.”


End file.
